Let S={1,2,3,4,.....19,20} Suppose that n is the smallest positive integer such that exactly eighteen numbers from S are factors of n and only two numbers which are not factors of n are consecutive integers. Find the sum of digits of n.
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Note that if a b is not a factor of n for relatively prime a , b > 1 , then at least one of a , b is not a factor of n ; however, since neither of a , b > 1 is consecutive with a b , this would contradict the definition of n . That is, if a b ∈ S where a , b > 1 are relatively prime, then a b must be a factor of n , or in other words, if m ∈ S is not a factor of n , then m = p k is the positive power of some prime.
We can even go one step further, as if p a ∈ S for some prime p > 1 and 0 ≤ b < a such that p b ∈ S is not a factor of n , then p a is a multiple of p b , so p a is also not a factor of n . As once again we can see that p b , p a are not consecutive, this would contradict the definition of n . It follows that if p a is not a factor of n , then p a + 1 > 2 0 is not an element of S , so the only possible nonfactors of n are the maximal prime powers of S .
We can list these: 2 4 = 1 6 , 3 2 = 9 , 5 , 7 , 1 1 , 1 3 , 1 7 , 1 9 , or in order: 5 , 7 , 9 , 1 1 , 1 3 , 1 6 , 1 7 , 1 9 of which the only two consecutive numbers are 1 6 , 1 7 so these must be the two nonfactors of n from S . It follows that n is the smallest positive multiple of the elements of S ∖ { 1 6 , 1 7 } , so n = lcm ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 1 0 , 1 1 , 1 2 , 1 3 , 1 4 , 1 5 , 1 8 , 1 9 , 2 0 ) = 2 3 3 2 5 1 7 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 9 1 = 6 8 4 6 8 4 0 and the sum of the digits is 6 + 8 + 4 + 6 + 8 + 4 + 0 = 3 6